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Ian Evatt has pledged to examine the “mindset and mentality” of his Wanderers squad in the aftermath of the club’s failure to get promotion from League One.
The Bolton boss had rallied against accusations that his team has struggled to produce on the big occasion but softened his stance somewhat after Saturday’s dismal Wembley defeat to Oxford United.
Evatt has said that the result – which condemned the club to a fourth consecutive season at this level – will trigger an extensive review. And he accepts that the mental toughness of his players is one key factor that will need improvement next season.
“I’ll have time to process and think about every aspect but there is one thing I have to look at right now,” he told The Bolton News. “It is the mindset and the mentality.
“I hate that narrative, it really eats me up because I think mentally I am as tough as it gets. I have had to deal with a lot of hardship and adversity in my life and I played in big games, wanted to be a part of the big games.
“But too often now that narrative is swinging the other way where we have under-achieved and not performed. And that is all about mentality.”
Evatt has already opted to release Cameron Jerome, Declan John and Jon Dadi Bodvarsson, who were at the end of their contract. But the prospect of drilling further into the first team squad and moving further players on is still a distinct possibility before next season.
“Ultimately we haven’t achieved our goal, so that means things have to change,” he reflected. “We will figure out exactly what in due course, but we came up short and let the supporters down in doing that, we can’t hide away from it.”
Evatt remains convinced that the style of play he has championed since coming to the club four years ago can take Wanderers to their ultimate goal of getting out of the Championship.
He came under heavy fire for perceived tactical inflexibility at Wembley, but he insists the possession-based brand which has become his hallmark will not be completely ripped up in pursuit of promotion.
“It has got us success so far, we have broken a lot of records this season, scored the most goals, so it is clearly not simply the philosophy or identity,” he said. “People are envious of our philosophy and identity. We just let ourselves down on the biggest stage by not playing well.
“When you don’t play well you don’t win games. I’d said during the week that if we played well, we would have a great chance, but we didn’t get that chance because from minute one we didn’t execute any type of gameplan and we didn’t play well.
“We do have to examine the reasons why that wasn’t the case.”
According to Opta, Wanderers finished the League One season with the third most goals from open play (59), behind Peterborough and Barnsley (66), and the second-most goals from set pieces (21) behind Derby County (25).
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